Huijuan Xiao

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Research Assistant Professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

China has committed to decreasing its emission intensity by 60% to 65% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. It is of great importance to evaluate the CO2 emission reduction potential to quantify the amount of CO2 emissions that can be less generated and the amount that should be balanced out. Economic structure a...

For decades, resource-based cities in China have significantly contributed to China's socio-economic development. The heavy resource dependence of resource-based cities inevitably leads to a series of environmental problems. Mitigating environmental impacts in an unthinking manner might be disruptive for economic development. Improving eco-efficien...

Achieving the 17 United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) in China largely depends on the transition of cities towards sustainable development. However, significant knowledge gaps exist in evaluating the SDG index at the city scale and in understanding how to simulate pathways to achieve the 17 SDGs for Chinese cities by 2030. This study...

The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations are currently being implemented by all United Nations member states to achieve sustainability by 2030. Growing transboundary environmental and socioeconomic interactions across different regions can positively or negatively affect the progress towards achieving SDGs; however...

Domestic attempts to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a country can have synergistic and/or trade-off effects on the advancement of SDGs in other countries. Transboundary SDG interactions can be delivered through various transmission channels (e.g., trade, river flow, ocean currents, and air flow). This study quantified the trans...

Sustainable development depends on the integration of the economy, society, and environment. Yet, escalating environmental challenges pose threats to both society and the economy. Despite progress in addressing environmental issues to promote sustainability, knowledge gaps in scientific research, technological advancement, engineering practice, and...

United Nations proposed 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), which can be impacted by both local effects within a local country and cross-border interactions from other countries. Yet few scholars explored cross-border interactions on the overall SDG performance (SDG index) between countries. This study employed the spatial dynamic data model t...

Industrial land drives economic growth but also contributes to global warming through carbon dioxide emissions. Still, the variance in its impact on economies and emissions across countries at different development stages is understudied. Here, we used satellite data and machine learning to map industrial land at 30 m resolution in ten countries wi...

The global energy demand has greatly impacted greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Since buildings are responsible for a large portion of global energy consumption, this study investigates the energy-saving potential of green roofs and cool roofs in reducing building energy consumption. Using an integrated approach that combines climate cha...

Resource-based cities are important strategic bases for securing resources in China and have made great contributions to the country’s economic development. Long-term extensive resource development has made resource-based cities an important region constraining China from achieving comprehensive low-carbon development. Therefore, it is of great sig...

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) are presented as significantly interacted. Yet most studies only investigated the direct interactions of SDG targets, and indirect interactions, i.e. the interlinkages transmitted through one or more mediums, should also be considered to obtain more accurate interaction estimation and more scientific policy...

As the world’s largest CO2 emitter, China’s emission reduction is the key to mitigating global climate change. Global investment capital, as a significant influencing factor of emissions, greatly contributes to China’s economic growth and stimulates frequent interprovincial trade since the reform and opening. However, the spatial correlation of for...

Resource-exhausted cities indicate the cities whose natural resources are exhausting, and whose accumulated exploitation reserves have reached more than 70% of the recoverable reserves. These types of cities could encounter many sustainability risks caused by the resource curse, such as slowing economic development, difficulty in economic transform...

Constituent entities which make up Russia have wide-ranging powers and are considered as important policymakers and implementers of climate change mitigation. Formulation of CO 2 emission inventories for Russia’s constituent entities is the priority step in achieving emission reduction. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of oil and gas combined...

S As the basis of urban social-economic development, water and energy resources are indivisible and interrelated in the production and consumption activities of cities. The frequent intercity trade of energy-related goods aggravates water withdrawal in neighboring cities and causes the spatial transfer of resources. The spatial correlation of water...

As energy security has been an increasingly hot topic in research, a reliable and sound framework for allaying energy security is necessary. In this paper, it establishes a methodological framework based on quantitative and qualitative approaches for measuring and improving energy security from a broad sense. Firstly, it interprets the conceptual f...

Cities play significant roles in mitigating global climate change and formulating low carbon roadmaps. As the first regional strategy that prioritizes green development, the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is an economic circle along the Yangtze River, stringing up 11 provinces and municipalities from west to east of China. The huge regional het...

China, a high energy-consuming and large country, is characterized by unbalanced socio-economic development among provinces, inevitably leading to a great disparity in energy security. It is of utmost importance to evaluate the subnational energy security situation in China to formulate effective measures to enhance energy security. This study first...

The sustainable development of the energy systems of China is becoming increasingly significant for both current and future generations. However, most of the existing studies focus on the evaluation of the energy system at the micro-level, which is a specific kind of energy type (e.g., hydrogen energy systems and electricity generation systems), wi...

The methods in sustainability science play a significant important role for promoting sustainable development. This chapter aims to have a brief review of some major methods in sustainability science including the methods and metrics for sustainability assessment and analysis, the methods for sustainability ranking and prioritization, the ways for...

Waste management has become an increasingly crucial issue for China because of the large quantities of municipal solid waste and its multiple negative impacts on the environment and society if inappropriately disposed of. Meanwhile, sustainable development requires an adequate supply of clean and affordable renewable energy sources. Waste-to-energy...

To put the brakes on global climate change, China, the world's top emitter, has established ambitious CO2 emissions reduction targets. Industry-level emissions analysis can help policymakers determine better ways to achieve mitigation targets. This study is the first to target the total-factor carbon emission performance (TCPI) of secondary and ser...

The implementation of CO2 emission mitigation policies in cities is the key to China achieving its national emission mitigation targets. China is experiencing rapid urbanization and facing huge inequality in regional development and then shrinking cities generate. This study, for the first time, discusses long-term CO2 emission patterns of shrinkin...

In this study, magnetic particles were prepared using organic rectorite as a carrier, and then a novel magnetic adsorbent named chitosan/organic rectorite-Fe3O4 intercalated composite microspheres (CS/Mt-OREC microspheres) was synthesized. The microspheres were characterized by XRD, FT-IR, TEM, SEM and VSM. The effects of adsorbent dosage, initial...

Chitosan/rectorie (CTS/REC) nano-hybrid composite microsphere was prepared by changing the proportion of CTS/REC with 2:1, 3:1 and 4:1. Compared with the pure cross-linking chitosan microsphere, the nano-hybrid composite microsphere was proved to have better sorption capacity of Cd(II), Cu(II) and Ni(II), especially 2:1(CTS/REC-1). The adsorption b...